Finally played Vohaul Strikes Back... awesomeness!

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I just finally got around to playing Vohaul Strikes Back, and wanted to say how great the game was!

It had been a while since I played such a great adventure game. It was funny, the puzzles were fun, and the people who made it were obviously huge fans of the source material. For me, VSB was a solid 9.5 brooms out of ten, and should proudly stand in the Space Quest Canon.

I started Space Quest Incinerations yesterday. It's definitely very interesting already. I'm a bit confused as to what happened to Beatrice's pregnancy from the beginning of VSB. Is that ever addressed?

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Gotcha. I assumed that Incinerations was consciously written to be a direct sequel to the Renegade ending of VSB, but I guess it's a bit more complex than that

I worked on VSB, but was making Incinerations separately. The choice to plug it in VSB's renegade ending was a lightbulb moment of mine that seemed cool at the time, but I regretfully didn't consider certain story aspects until much later. As MI said, consider it a story in a separate universe, but with a similar shared history where not all the details will line up. There's not too many references to VSB in it anyway. Both should be enjoyed independently.

On 5/24/2018 at 11:58 AM, MusicallyInspired said:

Yes. I believe the style and approach was inspired heavily by Curse of Monkey Island. But don't quote me on that. Perhaps someone on the team could chime in to confirm...

Frede is a huge fan of COMI, and I think most of the writing and art style was influenced by LucasArts. I think there was also the idea that we wanted to make something that looked more "late 90's" than "early 90's".

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I worked on VSB, but was making Incinerations separately. The choice to plug it in VSB's renegade ending was a lightbulb moment of mine that seemed cool at the time, but I regretfully didn't consider certain story aspects until much later. As MI said, consider it a story in a separate universe, but with a similar shared history where not all the details will line up. There's not too many references to VSB in it anyway. Both should be enjoyed independently.

Interesting, thanks for the clarification! Most of what I've seen of Incinerations (I'm currently on Havok's spaceship) would fit with the renegade ending of VSB, minus a few things here and there. Are there still plans for a special edition, as I remember reading about? I'm having a lot of fun playing Incinerations too, the darker yet funny mood is a nice change of pace.

On 5/30/2018 at 11:24 PM, Datadog said:

Frede is a huge fan of COMI, and I think most of the writing and art style was influenced by LucasArts. I think there was also the idea that we wanted to make something that looked more "late 90's" than "early 90's".

It felt like a very nice hybrid of the Sierra and LucasArts styles, with Sierra's cool settings and death scenes, and LucasArts's dialogue and comedy. I might be a bit biased as the humor style was very much along the lines of what I typically like.

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I just finished Incinerations today. Another really great game, congrats to the makers! I have to admit I was a bit lukewarm about it at first, with ***spoilers**** Beatrice acting like a psycho-jerkbag and the lack of continuity from VSB's renegade ending (as I was initially expecting), but it sure goes in full-blown epic mode when you get to the Forager, and then cranks it up to 11 at the end.

I think I might have a slight preference for VSB as a Space Quest sequel, but both games were top-class, and the best adventure games i`ve played recently (and that includes Thimbleweed Park).

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I have to admit I was a bit lukewarm about it at first, with ***spoilers**** Beatrice acting like a psycho-jerkbag

This was a common complaint from back when it was released. I was going to go back into the script and fix it up, but I feel there would be a double standard in doing that. Because when I went through the dialogue, it was pretty clear that Roger's selfish entitlement to his "future wife" was the problem, and Beatrice's defensive attitude was a delayed, but appropriate reaction to staying in a relationship with him. This is a case where voice acting probably would have helped, because hearing the confliction and fear in her voice would have added a lot of subtext to her character.

And seriously, I think Roger is the real monster in SQInc. He trashes weddings, steals from the homeless, sabotages a military operation and drugs and his best friend just to reclaim some former glory. He's kind of at the breaking point where an adventure game hero becomes the villain.

On 6/1/2018 at 9:06 PM, msylva said:

Are there still plans for a special edition,﻿ as I remember reading about?

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This was a common complaint from back when it was released. I was going to go back into the script and fix it up, but I feel there would be a double standard in doing that. Because when I went through the dialogue, it was pretty clear that Roger's selfish entitlement to his "future wife" was the problem, and Beatrice's defensive attitude was a delayed, but appropriate reaction to staying in a relationship with him. This is a case where voice acting probably would have helped, because hearing the confliction and fear in her voice would have added a lot of subtext to her character.

And seriously, I think Roger is the real monster in SQInc. He trashes weddings, steals from the homeless, sabotages a military operation and drugs and his best friend just to reclaim some former glory. He's kind of at the breaking point where an adventure game hero becomes the villain.

Good point. Playing as Roger (especially at the end-point of the series), it's pretty easy to just accept his actions when they come with a Eureka moment. His shredding of that poor dog's cellphone was pretty harsh too I just finished replaying the entire series, which has left me even more impressed at the 2 fan games. The voice acting in VSB was actually pretty decent. I played the remake of SQ2 and was put off by Roger's voice in that one, to be frank (he sounded too much like Larry Laffer).

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Thanks, my opinion of the casting pretty much lines up with Troels' impressions. We were faced with having to re-cast some major roles and/or re-record a bunch of lines and at that point we all had other things on our plate.

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I played the remake of SQ2 and was put off by Roger's voice in that one, to be frank (he sounded too much like Larry Laffer).

Isaac's original Roger voice for SQ2 was far better and I really liked it. It was a little more straight and closer to SQ6's Roger. Then someone (I don't remember who) wanted it to sound closer to what it eventually became. I and others disagreed. I never thought Roger should SOUND particularly dumb (I also dislike Roger's voice in SQ4), but that his intelligence should be an ironic contrast to his otherwise normal speaking voice. The only problem with SQ6's Roger I think was that he was a little TOO eloquent with his speech. But regardless, what he went ahead with the more goofy voice anyway (I don't remember why) and he had already recorded tons of lines that he obviously and understandably didn't want to re-do by the time discussion grew about it. It's a bit of a shame. But of course, Isaac did a great job with the direction he took regardless. It just wasn't the best choice for the game.

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Thanks, my opinion of the casting pretty much lines up with Troels' impressions. We were faced with having to re-cast some major roles and/or re-record a bunch of lines and at that point we all had other things on our plate.

That Roger Wilco voice guy is a bloke.

Still can't pronounce Vohaul, that guy... like after sixty different times... ;-)

I never finished VSB (add that to about the other 60 PC games I have on GoG, and the 30 XBox One games, that remain unplayed/unfinished) - and if I were to do this all over again - I'd actually play the game - and voice the line as I am playing it so I get all the right influxes. I intentionally played Roger as a "monotone" voice so when the elements of surprise happened, he sounded genuinely surprised - but I thought the monotone brought the less than intelligent vibe that I always imagined Roger had.

I definitely made a ton of mistakes, and regret I was a (big) part of the reason this probably never saw the light of day.

I dragged my poor wife to do Beatrice's voice - and she's never even played VSB - or even a Space Quest game for that matter. 😜 She's not big on typically wanting to do these things, but I think she indulges me (after 20 years of marriage and putting up with me, I think she just nods and agrees). I dragged her to do my own web series called Neverending Nights and a Star Wars Radio Play I wrote up - neither of which she was thrilled about (and it shows). 😜

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Isaac's original Roger voice for SQ2 was far better and I really liked it. It was a little more straight and closer to SQ6's Roger. Then someone (I don't remember who) wanted it to sound closer to what it eventually became. I and others disagreed. I never thought Roger should SOUND particularly dumb (I also dislike Roger's voice in SQ4), but that his intelligence should be an ironic contrast to his otherwise normal speaking voice. The only problem with SQ6's Roger I think was that he was a little TOO eloquent with his speech. But regardless, what he went ahead with the more goofy voice anyway (I don't remember why) and he had already recorded tons of lines that he obviously and understandably didn't want to re-do by the time discussion grew about it. It's a bit of a shame. But of course, Isaac did a great job with the direction he took regardless. It just wasn't the best choice for the game.

Isaac was also the narrator, wasn't he? I thought he was great there. 2012 sure was a great year to be a Space Quest fan (although I ended up playing all 3 fan games in 2018).

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This was a common complaint from back when it was released. I was going to go back into the script and fix it up, but I feel there would be a double standard in doing that. Because when I went through the dialogue, it was pretty clear that Roger's selfish entitlement to his "future wife" was the problem, and Beatrice's defensive attitude was a delayed, but appropriate reaction to staying in a relationship with him.

I guess I was in the minority that thought that Bea's characterization in Incinerations was spot on. And, furthermore, it also portrays Roger as a person who thinks he's a hero but really isn't. This is more in line with the Roger we saw early in the series: Someone who saved the universe by accident but let it get to his head, only to have the universe pay him back by knocking him down on the bottom rung where he belongs. What Bea is saying about him going off and "having another adventure" rings very true. She's been waiting very patiently for him to grow up, settle down, and stop chasing the next high.

Of course, she doesn't know that that's exactly what he had in mind when he got to Aries station. So I think her actions are justified.

I think, what really hit home for me, was

when Junior near the end of the game says that, through his travels in time, it became obvious that Bea and Roger just weren't meant for each other. What he said at the end of SQ4 was him going on rumors about Roger's greatness and a holo-picture he had of Bea, nothing more.

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And, furthermore, it also portrays Roger as a person who thinks he's a hero but really isn't.

Your playthrough got me wondering about all the times Roger "ran off to save the galaxy" versus all the times he was just rescuing some programmers from their crappy job. Because from Bea's perspective, if most of Roger's unsung adventures were like Space Quest 3, I'd be really sore about it too.